I think from a pure aerodynamic and noise point of view id take the new mercedes cla180 over the 918. Aero wise, the 918 is worse than most modern eco cars, with a cd of .30. The new cla180 has a cd of .24 for the regular version and. 22-23 for the efficiency version, and being a mercedes, is probably equally quiet. Then again my next vehicle will be a truck.

I think from a pure aerodynamic and noise point of view id take the new mercedes cla180 over the 918. Aero wise, the 918 is worse than most modern eco cars, with a cd of .30. The new cla180 has a cd of .24 for the regular version and. 22-23 for the efficiency version, and being a mercedes, is probably equally quiet. Then again my next vehicle will be a truck.

You would really need to test these by a 3rd party is my guess. If it's not a standardized test like SAE they can claim anything. I find it unusual that the CLA would do that good, even without downforce, it's too high.

True, but its unlikely any of them will be third party tested in stock form. The new CLA does have many similar features to the Bonneville ford fusion, which had a reported CD of .20. While its not as low to the ground as the 918, the tires are much narrower, and the full undertray negates most of the gains in drag reduction from lowering the car. There have been many non-lowered cars reach a Cd of <.20 over the years, including the Dodge Intrepid ESX and the Chevy EV1, both reached .19 SAE. One of the things that kill the 918 are the wide tires. A few years back, BMW did a study and found that a 20mm increase in tire width, from 225 to 245, raised the Cd by .02.

It doesn't always mean lower noise, but its often directly related. The aeromods I've made to my car have had more of an effect on noise than full coverage MLV. A huge amount of the noise from the floor of the car is actually aerodynamic related, as the air gets compressed underneath, and becomes turbulent from all the needless protrusions and rough spots on the underside of the car.

Dodge spent most of its time in the wind tunnel on the dodge dart trying to reduce road noise. Chevy just also released a large article on the anniversary of their wind tunnel, and stated in the article that the majority of testing in the wind tunnel by them or others now days is for noise reduction. The thing is, all the manufacturers know how to improve mileage with aero, they just refuse to do it, since most people wouldn't like the way the cars would look.

I havent seen the turbina, but i remeber pics of the bat. It really seems like aerodynamic research for cars peaked in the early 50's, before taking a back seat to looks. Its only coming around again for gas mileage reasons.

It was actually pretty good looking, better than the BATs. Advances in engine tech, particularly diesels has given the opportunity to improve MPG without sacrificing style-my dad has the BMW M535d, you wouldn't know it was a diesel until you look at the MPG, close to 40MPG and a 50-70mph time that shames "sports cars"-8 speed semi auto box helps keep it smooth while achieving silly speeds! Easily tunable to over 350BHP and 550ft/lb of torque-more than the box and drive shafts can handle...